All posts tagged easy recipes

Here’s a glimpse of a recent trip to California enjoying some treasured time with my husband and great friends. I hesitated to post these gorgeous green beauties because is it really fair that the California trees and flowers are this lush and beautiful when all is still dead here in the midwest?? It was so invigorating to hike through the majestic redwoods of Muir Woods and see new growth on the grapevines in the Russian River Valley, even if a bit depressing to come back to all of our dead winter trees. This just makes me even more excited about springtime and all of our baby seedlings in the basement waiting to soak up the sunshine.

These were some great vegetable gardens at the Lynmar Estate Vineyards. So Envious of all the kale, chard, cabbages & onions they have growing right now!

With a restaurant that costs $400+ per person I was happy just to stand in the French Laundry garden coveting all of their spring lettuces, flowers, chickens, and all the garden beds ready to be filled.

Inspired by the culinary mecca of California I immediately came home eager to cook something new and this was the perfect addition to our St. Patrick’s Day dinner + the kale made it the perfect shade of green. On a side note …I’m also inspired to grow some of these in our house. A chef gave us a few leaves to bring home and they smell so amazing and would be great with some thai recipes.

Mashed Creamy Cauliflower w/ Kale

1 head of cauliflower chopped

4-5 large leaves of kale coarsely chopped with ribs removed

2 cloves of garlic chopped

3 T. butter

1/4 c. freshly grated parmesan cheese

sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes

sea salt and pepper

Optional garnish | chopped parsley or chives

Directions

Steam or bake the cauliflower until tender. Add hot cauliflower to a large pot with the chopped kale, garlic and butter. Cook for a few minutes and then add parmesan and red pepper flakes. Stir until parmesan is melted.

Transfer to a food processor and puree until smooth. Place the puree into a bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with a little flat leaf parsley or chive.

What a fantastic first week of fall it has been. Last weekend we went apple picking, so baking with apples is fresh on the mind. We started off with an easy favorite … apple crisp! I used this recipe from Joy the Baker with a few changes. First I doubled the recipe to fit a 9×12 pan and used an almond flour/oatmeal blend for the topping. I also used brown sugar and honey for sweeteners and coconut oil to replace some of the butter.

Add apples and other filling ingredients to a 9×12 glass pan. In a medium mixing bowl stir together the almond flour, oats, sugar, spice, and salt. Use your fingers to combine chopped butter with the flour /oat mixture (or melt the butter and stir in).Mix in the coconut oil with flour/oat mixture. Spread the topping over the apples and bake for approx. 40 min.

cilantro noodle bowl | 101 cookbooks – you can also substitute chicken for the tofu and use less of the cayenne pepper. This is one of those recipes you can experiment with and use seasonal vegetables found at your farmers market and the ones your family likes.